Indana police locate vehicle of escaped Michigan killer

SHIPSHEWANA, Ind. — Northern Indiana residents are being told to stay behind locked doors after police found a vehicle belonging to a murderer who escaped from a Michigan prison.

The LaGrange County Sheriff’s Department issued statements Monday afternoon urging people to avoid an area in Shipshewana where the vehicle was located. A local school district also was ordered locked down.

Forty-year-old Michael David Elliot was discovered missing about 9:30 p.m. Sunday from the Ionia Correctional Facility in mid-Michigan. Corrections officials say he was dressed in a white kitchen uniform and may have escaped about 6 or 7 p.m.

Elliot was serving a life sentence for fatally shooting four people and burning down their Gladwin County house in 1993.

Police say he abducted a woman who escaped when he stopped for gas in Indiana.